Movie Review: Miss March

There are four noncommercial movies between tonight and next Thursday, and considering what has just opened commercially, you might want to pay unusual attention. Two of the noncommercials are at the Blank Page gallery. Tristan and Isolde, the full 4 hour opera, shows tonight at 6 and a family drama considered perhaps the best movie by Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu, Late Spring, shows Tuesday at 7:30, at the Blank Page, 917 West Douglas. Also tonight ? ain't this the way? ? Tallgrass is showing A Powerful Noise, about three women in various parts of the world who are working for change, one in Vietnam, a second in Bosnia, and a third in Mali, tonight at 7:30 in Warren Old Town. And guess when? ? tonight the Orpheum is showing Monty Python and the Holy Grail, one of the best Monty Pythons, at 7 P.M. Four noncommercials, three of them tonight only, in a week when one of the new commercials is Miss March. A friend and I agreed that Miss March rates about .50 out of four, give or take maybe .25. In all fairness, I must report that the person three seats to my right spent most of Miss March in such a state of hilarity that my friend commented on it, and he wasn't sitting anywhere near me, as far as I know. You might be amused yourself, if you regard as uproarious such subjects as lack of bowel control, inappropriate animal urination, drinking inappropriate substances, epileptic seizures, and hermaphrodites. It might be best if you are not sensitive to black comic stereotypes. Materials like these need to be treated very skillfully, if they are to be handled at all, and my friend and I agreed that there is no evidence of skill of any kind in Miss March. Perhaps the lowest point is the stock self-proclaimed super-stud who is full of advice for his less blessed fellow adolescents, in most cases tiresome at best, but here, one of the most obnoxious characters in recent memory. Even granting him credit for staying staunchly by his buddy through a four year coma and his apparently sincere efforts to help his recovered buddy get back into the old life did not make me like him. Between such a buddy and a coma, I'd hate to have to choose. And the recovered buddy is no gem, either. He's surprised that his girl friend has not stayed with him for his four unconscious years, and resents the fact that his father moved on to a job in another town. There was no reason to expect the coma to end, but everybody was supposed to suspend normal living just in case it did. And those are the only two characters Miss March pays any real attention to. Like House Bunny, Miss March features Hugh Hefner in a small but very sympathetic role, so I am willing to assume that the footage inside the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles was actually shot there, and that's about the only thing I found interesting, though it isn't played for comedy, as far as I could tell, though there is riotous waste material on view and a gang of firemen acting in such a way as to go well with the black stereotypes. Miss March sullies just about everything it touches. The plot involves the usual cross country drive, but nothing is done with the settings passed or the characters met. Miss March admits no more imagination than it does talent. Not to end on a negative note, I can recommend a really funny abstinence lecture at a high school, which fortunately occurs early enough that we are still willing to chuckle at mere bad taste as well as hope that Miss March will actually have a point. And remember that person three seats to my right. Somebody is going to like Miss March. I just hope it isn't you. Jim Erickson has been KMUW's film reviewer since 1974. Jim taught Narrative in Literature and Film at WSU from 1966 until his retirement in 1997. Jim's favorite film is Citizen Kane.